


Forest Fires

by frimfram



Category: Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: M/M, hydrocarbon love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 04:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frimfram/pseuds/frimfram
Summary: So someone wanted something written to accompany this image: https://ajremix.deviantart.com/art/Clothes-Kink-193647690 of Ted doing his Bug mechanic thing, and after a certain amount of back and forth over whether topless welding is a good idea, this is what happened.Also, welding fans: I have taken the liberty of assuming Ted was just using a propane torch for oxy-fuel welding. Obviously not *arc* welding. That would be *crazy dangerous*.Harry: This one is probably a bit embarrassing.This is the weirdest prologue I have ever written.





	Forest Fires

**Author's Note:**

> This is another old fic that I am studiously not editing seven years after the fact. It is also VERY silly and pornographic and not suitable reading material for anyone.

**Forest Fires**

  
  
It comes so close to being the peaceful shift Booster needed. A ten p.m. start and Bea for a shift partner: no one calls in at the Superbuddies shopfront, nobody calls up on the phone, and the two of them lounge about making popcorn and marathoning a box set of  _The Prisoner_. No fuss, no drama, and Ted and Tora will be relieving them at eight: it's  _so close_  to eight when Guy Gardner bursts in that Booster can almost taste it. But then there's Guy, grinning like a kid who's just let off a stinkbomb, and it's too much to hope that the game isn't up. Guy swipes an oreo from a plate on the counter, stuffs it whole into his mouth, and sprays Bea and Booster with crumbs when he tells them "Take a seat, ladies."  
  
Bea snags the cookie plate and pulls it out of Guy's reach: "Guy Gardner. I thought Max was changing the locks."  
  
"Oh, please." Guy zaps a glowing green hand out of his power ring to swipe another cookie from behind Bea's back. "Without me, your tinpot little operation would fold in five minutes. Now, grab a chair, peaches. I got something to tell you about Beetle, and you're gonna wanna be sitting down for this one."  
  
Booster's heart sinks, but before he can speak Bea's propped herself against the counter, arms folded over her chest. "Go on, then," she says. "Let's hear it."  
  
"Please." Booster waves a hand. "It's  _Guy_. You're going to listen to a word he says?"  
  
Guy sneers. "If she's got any brain cells left after hours stuck in here with you, she will."  
  
Bea drums her green-polished nails on the counter. "Out with it, Guy. My shift's done in five minutes and I have a lot of being nowhere near you to catch up on."  
  
"All right. But you're gonna regret not sitting down." Guy gathers himself, like a televangelist going for the big hallelujah: "Beetle  _manscapes_."  
  
Booster and Bea blink at him in synchrony.  
  
"Ted - Kord - manscapes." Guy looks from one face to another, his grin fading. "Come  _on_ , people. None of you reads AskMen.com? It means shaving off your body hair."  
  
"I know what it  _means_ ," says Bea. "And I've personally flash-fried enough of Ted's chest hairs to be really sure he doesn't do it."  
  
Guy jabs a thumb toward the corridor leading to the locker rooms. "Go see for yourself! He's in there right now, smooth as a salesman's spiel."  
  
"Yeah," Booster mutters, "but that's not because he  _manscapes_."  
  
There's a moment's silence, making Booster look up. He finds his team-mates both staring at him. Bea has an eyebrow hiked and a grin fighting at the corners of her mouth.  
  
"Oh, yeah?" drawls Guy.  
  
"I mean..." Booster says, his pulse suddenly very loud in his ears, "...I guess."  
  
Guy leans back against the counter, propping himself next to Bea. Unlike her, he's not bothering to fight off the grin. "You sure sound like you know a lot about it, Metro Boy."  
  
Booster's face is getting hot. He scowls at Guy. "You're the one who knew what  _manscaping_  is."  
  
"Yeah, well you're the one who knew what state Ted's chest is in without  _looking_."  
  
Booster knocks his chair backward, jumping to his feet. "I don't have to put up with this. Shift's over anyway."  
  
"All right!" Guy yells after Booster, as he makes for the door. "Go tell him wax is okay for upstairs, but he'll want an electric shaver below decks. And you'd better warn him the regrowth's a bitch! Four days and they'll be like a coupla kiwi fruit down there!"  
  
Bea's peals of laughter follow Booster out of the room.  
  


***

  
In the changing room, Ted greets Booster's arrival by slamming shut his locker door. "This," he says, "is all your fault."  
  
Booster stops and stares.  
  
It's Ted, all right, but as Booster's never seen him before: his whole torso is hairless, only a few strands showing from under his folded arms as he glowers at Booster across the room. The towel wrapped around his waist cuts a line across a stomach like Greek marble, and below its lower hem extend legs that could've belonged to an Olympic swimmer.  
  
"Okay," says Booster, holding up both hands; "I know you're mad, but we  _definitely_  did not set that much of it on fire."  
  
"Well - the salon bullied me a bit." Ted slumps down onto the bench unhappily, the white towel draping across his knees. "When the depilation woman got through tidying up the singed bits on my chest, she sort of pinioned me to the table and said she'd take off  _everything_  for ten dollars more."  
  
Booster doesn't even try not to stare. "And you said 'Sure'?"  
  
"Booster, she was terrifying. Think Sinestro in a nurse's uniform."  
  
"You've been reading Guy's dream diary again, haven't you?"  
  
Ted shudders, resettling the towel's hem around his middle. "You're getting off the point. The point is,  _you_  definitely started it, and I am definitely blaming you."  
  
"That's not fair." Booster joins Ted on the bench by the lockers and tries to drape an arm around his shoulder, eyes fixed on the exposed spread of Ted's broad chest. "You provoked me."  
  
Ted ducks clear of Booster, refolding his arms protectively over his chest and frowning. "Booster, I was  _welding_."  
  
"Provocatively!"  
  
"It is a scientific impossibility to weld provocatively!"  
  
"What can I say?" Booster shuffles closer on the bench, unable to keep from staring at Ted's body. He's in great shape these days: without the fur on his chest and belly, the soft outline of muscle shows clearly through his pale skin. "You're always pushing the envelope of scientific possibility."  
  
"I  _try_  to, but it's  _hard_  when enthusiastic bystanders start  _stripping off your protective clothing_  and letting  _sparks land in your body hair_."  
  
"I helped you put out the fire!"  
  
"You threw a jug of ice water over my  _lightly smouldering torso_. It was like a seduction routine from Bizarro World."  
  
"So," Booster says, getting an arm around Ted's waist at last, "let me make it up to you."  
  
Ted grimaces, but this time doesn't dodge away. "You're kidding." He looks down at himself: for the first time Booster notices the faint flush of a rash below his navel. "I feel like there's a million tiny Fourth of July parties in every follicle on my body. The bits of me that were literally on fire actually sting a bit less than the average."  
  
"I bet I know just how to soothe them," Booster says, and he licks the place where Ted's neck meets his ear.  
  
"Hmph," Ted huffs, but the frown on his brow has shallowed a little, and he doesn't push Booster away. Booster presses his nose into Ted's neck, sucks a kiss - soft at first, then bruising - into the fine skin behind Ted's ear. He takes Ted's muffled groan as encouragement and trails the kisses down Ted's neck and onto his chin, the skin there half-darkened with the ghost of stubble and rougher just now than anywhere else on his body. With a raised hand he maps the angle of Ted's jaw, abrading the pad of his thumb while his other hand strokes up the unfamiliar smoothness of Ted's stomach. Ted shivers, dropping back his head against the steel locker doors and letting Booster capture his mouth, slide his tongue inside and kiss him with closed-eyed intensity. Booster moves one hand slow across the coarse flannel towelling, making for the center of Ted's lap. "Nnh," Ted says, breaking off the kiss when Booster's fingers trace his inner thigh through the towel. "This is a bad idea. I'm supposed to be starting my shift now, and the guys are right down the hall."  
  
"About that." Booster gnaws absently at the inside of his lower lip. "I'm not totally sure, but I think they might've guessed about us."  
  
Ted grins, flushed in the face and breathless. "Gee, and there I thought we were so subtle."  
  
"It doesn't bother you?"  
  
Ted looks down at the pinkened tissue of his newly-smooth chest, the smile still on his face. "Right now, it's not top of my list of stuff to stress about."  
  
"I know a way to de-stress you completely," Booster offers, looking from Ted's chest to his eyes. "Can I?"  
  
Ted swallows visibly, nodding, and Booster strokes down over Ted's bare torso to the place where the towel is draped over his midriff. He pauses for a moment, then dips his fingertips below the towel's upper edge, petting the perfectly smooth skin below.  
  
"Weird, huh?" Ted breathes, his voice coming in shaky, watching Booster as he strokes.  
  
Booster presses lower. "Not the first word I'd use." He rests his other hand on Ted's knee and starts sliding his fingers upward, passing under the towel from below, pressing hot along the inside of Ted's thigh. Booster massages his fingers against the fine, bare skin, and Ted shivers and groans.  
  
An inch further, then Booster's fingers pause.  
  
"Huh," he says, glancing up at Ted's flushed face. "They really took  _everything_  off?"  
  
Ted nods. "I had to fight to keep my armpits post-pubescent."  
  
Booster's smiles, but his voice comes in thick. He looks up to Ted's face from his lap. "Can I... can I see?"  
  
"Yesterday," Ted manages, "You had a clothes kink."  
  
"I have a pretty strong naked kink too."  
  
Ted laughs at that, his face red, and Booster stops fighting the urge to unwrap him like a Christmas present. He peels the towel away and groans: it's different, this porn-star look, but it's all Ted, and Booster thinks he'd be addicted to Ted furry or smooth or wrapped up with a gold lamé ribbon. He traces a hand up over Ted's exposed skin, watching the flicker of Ted's closed eyelids: "Feel different?" he asks.  
  
"Feels...  _more_..." Ted says, and when Booster closes his hand around the base of Ted's erection Ted groans and bangs the back of his head against the locker door.  
  
"You're gonna be late for your shift," Booster says, sliding his hand, just because he likes making Ted tell him not to stop.  
  
"Not  _very_  late, if you keep doing that."  
  
Well, if he can't make Ted beg for more, reducing him to the endurance of a teenager is a perverse pleasure in its own right. Booster gets up from the bench and kneels down there on the locker room floor in between Ted's feet. Eyes fixed on Ted's as his friend's pupils dilate, he smiles the slightly-evil smile that always pulls Ted apart, and takes Ted into his mouth right down to the root.  
  
"Oh, fuck, Booster," Ted gasps, and his fingers scrabble for a hold on the bench to brace himself up. Booster wants to tease him, but he wants to make him happy: he hollows his cheeks and sucks around Ted, starting to bob his head. Ted groans and grabs for him, burying his hands in Booster's hair and wrapping one bare leg hard around his back. Booster smiles to himself, taking Ted in so deep his forehead brushes Ted's smooth stomach. When Ted babbles incoherently he squeezes his side and changes the angle, flicking with his tongue and pressing it up beneath the head of Ted's cock. He can see Ted's face this way, see the red heat spreading through his cheeks and the sliver of blue in his almost-closed eyes. "I can't," Ted gasps, biting his lip so hard it goes white, "'m gonna - nnh --" and when Booster presses his fingers against Ted's body, into the fine skin right behind his balls, Ted shudders and curls his toes into Booster's back and comes, crying out, in the back of Booster's throat.  
  
Booster gets up from the floor only when his knees go numb, wiping his mouth and working the stiffness out of his jaw. Ted smiles down at him lazily, the sex flush fading on his bare pink chest. "Mmmm," Ted breathes, taking his hand and pulling him into his lap for a kiss. "Gonna havta let you make stuff up to me more often."  
  
"Sure." Booster grins at him. "Just say the word, and I'll set fire to your chest hair all over again."  
  
Ted huffs a short laugh, groping for the towel to clean himself up. "So," he says, "Waddya reckon to the streamlined look?"  
  
Booster kisses Ted's shoulder, petting at his deforested chest. "I like it. But I miss the furry version."  
  
"Good. I'm never doing this again. It costs sixty dollars and felt like getting flayed. I haven't cried so much in front of another grown adult since the day I met Batman."  
  
Booster laughs and kisses Ted on the nose. "Good. You're very manly when you're hairy."  
  
Ted kisses him back and runs a palm inside Booster's shirt over his own, almost-smooth chest, tweaking one of the near-invisibly fine fair hairs that curls between his nipples. "You can be manly even when you're not," he points out.  
  
Booster pulls a face, flexing his bicep and puffing out his chest. "True. But on you, it's one of my kinks."  
  
Ted laughs. "You and your kinks. You're gonna have to make me an alphabetized list." He wraps the towel back around his waist and gets up, fishing in the locker for his wash bag, one hand reaching back for what looks suspiciously like an instinctive scratch.  _Regrowth_ , Booster thinks suddenly, unable to stop himself grinning.  
  
"Don't worry," he tells Ted, wrapping himself around his broad back for one last smooch. "It includes kiwi fruit." And he kisses Ted's confusion away.


End file.
